The World

Surgeons Separate Conjoined Korean Infants

SINGAPORE — Infant Korean sisters connected at the lower back were successfully separated Tuesday at Raffles Hospital -- just two weeks after the hospital's failed attempt to separate adult Iranian twins.

The girls, whose names mean Love and Wisdom in Korean, also underwent plastic and reconstructive surgery.

Doctors said both were resting in stable condition in the intensive-care unit after the 4 1/2-hour operation.

The twins were fused at the pelvis, the lower end of their spine, the lower end of their intestinal tract and some parts of their genitalia, doctors said.

The procedure took place just two weeks after a team of Raffles surgeons failed to separate Ladan and Laleh Bijani, Iranian twins born joined at the head. The 29-year-old sisters died in the operating room, 90 minutes apart, from massive blood loss.

Separation surgery on conjoined adults is more difficult than such procedures on infants.